Strawberry Margarita Mix
by StaplerPrincess
Summary: For the Tiger and Bunny fanwork exchange, prompt: Kotetsu and Barnaby going drinking, which I then interpreted as "Kotetsu and Barnaby getting tanked."


**A/N: **Well it's been a while since I've posted anything, so yeah. Idk what to say.

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><p>The first thing Kotetsu does when he gets out of the hospital, is drive to the nearest convenience store and buy two shopping bags of liquor of various strengths. The next thing he does is call up Barnaby to invite himself over for a celebratory dinner. Bunny agrees, albeit with a little coaxing and guilt tripping, but when he opens the door to his apartment and sees Kotetsu carrying two clinking bags with the same grin on his face the older hero has right before he inflicts major property damage, he puts two and two together and closes the door quickly.<p>

"Wai-wai-hold on a second Bunny!" Kotetsu yells, sticking his foot in the doorway before he can get shut out, only to yelp in pain as his foot is crushed.

"Whatever you are planning I have no desire to be a part of it," Bunny says flatly as he pushes his glasses up higher onto the bridge of his nose.

"I just wanted to celebrate with my partner," Kotetsu says, wedging a shoulder in the gap of the doorway, "Is that so bad?" He rolls his eyes in what he imagines to be an endearing fashion as Bunny sighs.

"I thought you said you wanted to get dinner as a celebration, not drink yourself into a stupor."

Kotetsu flails, or at least flails as best he can with half of him wedged between the door. "What's celebrating without drinks? Look at every other holiday; you don't see people eating do you? No they're sitting around getting tanked!"

"I don't recall any instance of my parents getting drunk, holiday or not."

"That's because you were still a child," the older man replies primly. "Take it from a parent Bunny, as soon as you went to sleep the good stuff got brought out." Kotetsu gives Barnaby a chance to mull that over before whining, "Besides we go drinking every week anyway, it's the same thing!"

Barnaby startles out of his reverie abruptly, "We go out for _a_ drink every week. As in only one, because your driving is terrible as it is and you hardly need anything else to impair your judgment on the road. Especially after Wild Bison told me about your more _colorful,"_ Barnaby says the word with as much relish as he can muster up, enjoying the way Kotetsu paled at his mention of his best friend, "history from your school days."

"But- but- I was in the hospital! And if you drink in there they get really mad so really I'm just making up for lost time, especially since I was the only one who couldn't drink with you at the big party they threw you!" The last part he throws in with some trepidation, wary of the potential emotional landmine he might have just stepped on, but dammit he spent nearly a month in that damn place with nothing to do but count the ceiling tiles (there were thirty two) and drum his fingers nervously until someone came by to tell him to stop. And so what if Nathan smuggled him a couple drinks, he didn't even like martinis and as it turned out the nurses could tell from the heart rate monitor whenever he'd snuck a few (things were like polygraphs, wasn't that illegal or something to use them like that?) so he had to sit through so many lectures it felt like he was back at school again.

At his mention of the after party Bunny stiffens, then sighs before finally opening the door, "All right then, I suppose it can't be helped. But you'd at least better make something to eat with all this."

Kotetsu grins widely as he slouches his way inside, calling a cheerful "Pardon the intrusion!" as he makes his way to the kitchen.

"Something other than fried rice!" Barnaby calls after him.

A still hatted head is stuck back out into the hallway in surprise, "What's wrong with my fried rice? I'm pretty famous for it you know!"

The blonde man sighs once again, those drinks were starting to sound more and more like a better idea. "Whatever's fine. Just make me a salad then."

The head was slowly withdrawn as Kotetsu retreated back into the kitchen, voice muffled from the distance but the amusement in it was clear as he called back "You know, when I gave you that nickname I didn't expect it to be so spot on."

"Just shut up and make the damn salad old man!"

Kotetsu was still chuckling to himself when he came back out of the kitchen carrying two salads and a pair of highball glasses filled with shochu on ice. Barnaby eyed the glasses warily even as he took both the plate and the drink with a muttered thank you. "Aren't you supposed to drink shots with this?" he asked, gesturing to the glass in his hand.

Green clothed shoulders go up and down in a shrug, "Doesn't really matter I think. If you prefer shots the bottles still pretty full, might as go all out right?"

"No thank you," Barnaby replies dryly. "I'd like to get through this with some semblance of reason intact."

Kotetsu pouts a bit, before sniggering, "Aww don't tell me Bunny-chan's afraid the old man'll drink him under the table."

Despite himself, Barnaby rises to the bait. "I would worry about yourself if I were you Kotetsu. Wouldn't want your heart to give out because of the strain," he sneers and throws back the glass in one swallow. He puts the glass back down with a thud and wipes his mouth with the back of one hand, smirking at the older hero.

"Whoo hoo!" Kotetsu cheers through a mouthful of salad, "Go Bunny!"

Barnaby preens, stabbing through a cherry tomato and several lettuce leaves to shove them into his mouth. He chews furiously for a second, cheeks bulging comically as Kotetsu watches in blank interest, sipping his own drink. An attempted swallow has him choking, flailing for his glass but then remembers how he had emptied it earlier. So he snatches the half full tumbler out of Kotetsu's grasp, ignoring the others complaints and upends the drink into his mouth and swallows, ice and all.

A slight flush rises to Barnaby's pale cheeks and he gets up on his feet, albeit with less grace than usual. "I'm going to get more drinks," he announces and lumbers to the kitchen. Kotetsu shrugs and giggles a little as he eats more salad. With an audible _thunk_ Barnaby returns, slamming down the half-drunk bottle of shochu and another unopened bottle of the same beverage. He pours Kotetsu a sloppy three fingers of alcohol, setting it before him with a leer, "Better catch up old man, I'm up two drinks already."

Kotetsu takes the drink with a shrug before downing it and saying, "That actually makes three for me. I had a couple while I was in the kitchen." He turns to Barnaby, grinning hugely and the other man can now see the telltale flush on tanned skin. "Come on!" Kotetsu says suddenly, slapping Barnaby on the back, "I made the salad so you better eat it, ne? Bun-ny-chan?" He pronounces each syllable distinctly, grinning like the Cheshire cat as he pours himself another drink.

Barnaby scowls at Kotetsu but eats the salad anyway. It came from his own kitchen after all so it'd be a waste of his money not to. With that in mind he glances over to the other's plate, the old man better not waste his lettuce, the organic stuff was expensive after all. Luckily it appeared that Kotetsu had finished off most of his dinner while Barnaby was getting refills, and now was humming at his half-full glass. "This makes four~" the older hero sing songs. Upon noticing Barnaby's grimace, he throws an arm around the blonde, nearly spilling the drink Barnaby is pouring himself. "Come on Bunny, lighten up! Have some fun! I'll even sing you a song!" Barnaby grunts in assent, nursing the glass clutched between his hands as Kotetsu launches into an extremely off key rendition of Don't Stop Believin', and shouting "Heroes!" after yowling the song's namesake line. Barnaby has enough time to finish off one drink and he's just starting on the fourth before Kotetsu ends with a painfully ad-libbed "Let's Believe! Heroes!" and pumps his fist in the air enthusiastically. He shakes Barnaby's shoulder with the arm he still has wrapped around the man and says "Okay Bunny, your turn!"

Barnaby splutters into his glass, coughing as Kotetsu thumps on the back unhelpfully, "No. No way. Not happening."

"Wha- But why not?" the other whines grinding the top of his head into Barnaby's cheek like an overlarge cat, "You sang for that promotional CD we did. Oh do you want to do the duet? Okay, but you have to start." Kotetsu waits, watching Barnaby with huge expectant eyes.

The blonde man just sighs and tops off his glass, then shoves another glass of shochu at his partner, "Just shut up and drink old man."

"How about opera? I know how much you like opera. You can do that one song that the fat lady does that's all wail-y and stuff."

"No."

Kotetsu was, Barnaby was beginning to realize half an hour and a bottle of shochu and half a bottle of gin later, an affectionate drunk. Not just an affectionate drunk, he decided when the older hero hugged Barnaby's blonde curls to his chest and patted them fondly as he mumbled about bunny rabbits turning into defenders of justice, a _very_ affectionate drunk.

"You know what Bunny?" Kotetsu slurs, "I love you. C'mere partner. Gimme a hug. You're so cool. You're so cool my daughter likes you. And she has good taste. I should know, she got it from me."

And maybe Barnaby's is well on his way to drunkenness as well, because he joins in unrestrainedly with Kotetsu's shrieking laughter, snorting into his gin and tonic, and then laughing even harder at the sound that it makes. Then Kotetsu is laughing just because Barnaby is laughing, and he collapses into the blondes lap, choking for air and spilling his drink onto the floor as he flails. Barnaby finds this hilarious, and falls backward and knocks the decanter of gin over, pounding the ground at how hysterical everything is, before pausing and saying in a completely serious voice, "We're out of liquor."

Kotetsu quiets in his lap, "What about the margarita mixes?"

Barnaby bolts up, "Margarita mix? Why didn't you say you brought some earlier? Did you get strawberry flavor? Yes!" he shouts the last part in a drunken triumph. "Strawberry flavor!" He lurches back, bottle of strawberry margarita mix in one hand, tequila in the other. "Hold this," he tells the other, handing him the tequila. Picking up a discarded glass, he slops a measure of the pink liquid into it, green eyes squinting in concentration. "Here," he says and hands Kotetsu the glass, then takes the tequila from him. The older hero shrugs and makes as if to drink the pink liquid but Barnaby shrieks at him, "Not yet! I didn't add the tequila yet! You don't understand the magic of the strawberry margarita!" So back down goes the offending hand and relinquishes the glass as its twin docilely takes the pink bottle from Barnaby's own impatiently proffered limb. He takes the now properly magical beverage from the blonde and throws it back in one swallow. "Well? Didn't I tell you? Magical." Kotetsu just shrugs and takes a swig from the tequila bottle. "Magical," Barnaby insists, snatching back the bottle to slosh together his own mix.

An hour later, they've managed to work through both shopping bags and are sprawled on the floor, insensate. Kotetsu is still affectionate, but Barnaby is too drunk to really care at this point. Instead he's helping the other call up the other heroes to tell them how much they love them, which is purely Kotetsu, and to ask them to bring some more alcohol to Barnaby's apartment ("Strawberry margarita mix," Barnaby slurs into the speaker, "And tequila. The good stuff not that cheap crap from the corner mart."). The blonde is still giggling to himself as Kotetsu crawls over him in an attempt to reach a bottle of wine that Barnaby had taken out of his own personal stash. The older man's going is hindered by the fact that their legs seem intent on entangling themselves, and that Barnaby was apparently very ticklish and kept thrashing with laughter. Finally, Kotetsu is beginning to consider just dragging the blonde alone with him like a ball and chain and sets off to do just that, nodding briskly to himself, or he would have anyway if it didn't make the room wiggle a little at the edges. He starts to haul himself across the hardwood floor, sliding on his side, when Barnaby grabs his wrist in an iron grip.

"Wait," he says, face shadowed by blonde locks.

Kotetsu stops, breathing heavily not because he's tired or anything, after all he's a hero dammit. The blonde is currently lying halfway on top of his partner, his chest pressed onto Kotetsu's uncomfortably bony shoulder, his body a warm mass squashing the Japanese man into the floor. Their legs are still tangled together and the angle is twisting Kotetsu's waist awkwardly, so he rolls onto his back with a grunt as Barnaby's full body weight falls onto his chest. He isn't exactly sure what to do now, not that being pinned under a grown man's body wasn't painful or anything, in fact it was surprisingly comfy what with Bunny's high body temperature and everything, but he really wanted another glass of that wine. Bunny sure went in for the good stuff. He's still lying like dead weight on top of Kotetsu, who's beginning to feel a little uncomfortable. After all, Bunny seemed like the depressed drunk type, after all he had enough mental trauma for at least four psychiatrists. God, what if he was like Antonio who always cried and talked about high school whenever he got drunk. Kotetsu was bad at dealing with crying people. He patted Barnaby's back, "There there," he said in his best fatherly tone. "There there." The blonde twitched a little which Kotetsu took as a good sign.

"I think I'm going to throw up," Barnaby enunciates clearly.

Oh. That was a relief then. He could deal with that.

So he hauls Barnaby to the bathroom, casting longing glances at the wine as he goes, sets up the younger man in front of the toilet and sits on the edge of the tub next to him as there's still a death grip on his wrist. Seems like he was just in time too, as Barnaby retches into the porcelain bowl before commanding Kotetsu to hold his hair back for him, "Since it's your fault." He plays with the loose ponytail in his hands while he waits for Barnaby to finish, musing on how _bouncy_ the others hair is. Reminds him of Kaede's hair actually. Making a little "hmmm" noise in deep thought, he sets to braiding his partner's hair. He's just about finished when Barnaby shrieks, "LEAVES! YOU LET ME EAT LEAVES?"

The thought of the blonde eating foliage for some reason turns his stomach, and he shoves Barnaby's head out of the way to do his own heaving after properly tying off the end of the French braid he had skillfully woven.

The next morning the pair wake due to the fact that while Barnaby's apartments' huge window gives a great view of the city, it also ensures that sunrises are a blazing affair. Simultaneously, they roll over, groaning in pain at the splitting headaches each of them have. "Turn it off," Kotetsu croaks and attempts to crawl under the chair. Barnaby gropes blindly for the remote that controls the environmental settings, and they sigh in relief at the blissful darkness.

"I'm never listening to you again," the blonde rasps.

"Me neither," is the muffled reply. "I'm getting too old for this."

"Yes, especially since I beat you last night."

"But you threw up before I did."

"Because I drank more."

"…Next week Bunny. We'll settle this."

"Absolutely not."

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><p><strong>AN: **I originally intended this to be a lot longer, but then I kind of ran out of time for the fic exchange. Might do a sequel then because there were some bits I really wanted to put in.


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